Improvement in purifying iron and steel, or other metal



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Letters Patent No. 95,419, dated October 5, 1869.

IMPROVEMENT IN PURIFYING- IRON AND STEEL, OR OTHER METAL.

The Schedule referred to is these Letters Patent and making part at thesame To whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EDWARD BRADY, of the city of Philadelphia, in theState of Pennsylvania, have invented an Improved Mode of Purifying Ironor any other Metal; and I declare the following to be a sufficicutlyfull and exact description thereof to enable one skilled in the art towhich it appcrtains, to carry it into effect.

The nature of this invention is a further improve ment in themanufacture of iron, 850., for which I obtained Letters Patent on the10th of August. 1869; and, in its present preferred form, consists inmingling, mixing, and manipulating sulphates of soda, potassa, andalumina, or any sulphates of the metals of the alkalies, earths, oralkaline earths and calcium, or the oxides or other compounds thereof,with any sort, kind, or description of melted iron, ores of iron, oriron pyrites, 850., or of any other melted metal or mineral, in anordinary blast-furnace, by common mechanical means, or the melted iron,860., can be poured on to the sulphates in suitable vesscls, but thecalcium should be added'last, the chemical changes and re sults,consequent thereupon, decomposing, evolving, separating, combining, anddepositing, by the laws of natural chemical affinity, the impurities ofcarbon, phosphorus, silicon, sulphur, 800., and generating sulphurous,8tc., acid gases, and forming a slag.

The oxygen becoming disengaged, upon a decomposition of the sulphates,caused by a contact with the melted iron, 850., or consequent upon afusion there- I with, will unite, by chemical attraction, with a greaterpart, or more or less, of the carbon, phosphorus, silicon, and a portionof the sulphur, in the molten mass, and will form carbonic-acid gas,phosphorous-acid gas, silicic acid, in a liquidity, and snlphurousacidgas, these gases escaping or passing ofl, or they may be conducted intoproper receptacles, by some convenient methods; and the fluid acid, andthe remainingsulphur, having a much greater natural chemical aflinityfor the calcium, and for-the other bases, sodium, 110- tassium, oraluminium, 850., than for iron, 850., will coalesce, and 'make sulphidesand silicates, or a slag,

which becomes disengaged from the iron, 850., by specific gravity,leaving the hot iron, 850., pure; and the same can be converted, by theusual manner of proceeding therein, into wrought or malleable iron,8tc., or, when a sufliciency of the carbon is left in it, into steel,and direct from the meltirig-furnaces, Without the intervention of, anddispensing with, the processes known as pnddling, 85c.

The quantities or proportions of materials and chemical agents, oringredients to be used, cannot be specified definitely, because suchdepends upon the greater or less amount or share of the impuritiescontained in the molten metal, which varies materially, according to itsquality, thus requiring a larger or smaller quantity of the sulphates,and proportion of calcium, to be determined by a practical experience inevery instance.

. One pound each of the dry sulphates of soda and potassa, or theirequivalents, and three pounds of calcium, in the form of pulverizedlime, or other available form, will produce a purifying change, orbeneficial effect, upon one thousand pounds of molten metal; but I donot desire to limit myself to those or to any specific quantities'of thechemical agents; as with iron,

or other metal or mineral containing much sulphur,

an increased proportion of calcium may be advanor mineral, whereby theimpurities of sulphur, silicon,

phosphorus, &c., are set free, substantially as above described and setforth.

EDWARD BRADY. Witnesses:

' HUGH BRADY,

W. F. BRADY, E. BRADY, Jr.

